Does this release include the semi-rare Network Edition at all?

I was just wondering how the GoG folks got a 16-bit WinG game working properly under modern Windows, before I remembered that it is of course the DOS version running in DOSBox.

The Network Edition is indeed one of those rare games that will only run under Windows 95/98/ME until someone does some "serious reprogramming", which does seem kind of unlikely, given that it is indeed semi-rare.

This'll probably be no news to many people, but it's worth repeating:

First, you want to recompile the source code, because almost no-one wants to re-write a program using a hex editor. Change some values, sure. Re-write? Nope.

Second, the source code is likely lost, so you use a decompiler.

Third, the decompiler probably won't be near an exact match for whatever compiler was used, so you're going to get a fair amount of raw dump, at best.

Fourth, you now have to understand this mess.

Fifth, you need to re-write it to run on XP, Vista and Win7.

If you have any sanity left, it's probably three to six months later - For one game.

Much easier to throw it in an emulator. Unfortunately, there's no "Windows 95/98 emulator" you can just download and run on your computer. You can run it in a virtual machine, but that would require a legal copy of Windows 95/98.

There are programs like Wine, but they come with their own problems - Plus, they try to emulate the latest version of the OS, not ones popular about a decade and a half ago.

So, we get stuff in DOSBox or other wrappers because one game a week in DOSBox is still much better than one game every three-to-six months that runs natively.

Virtualization using OSes like ReactOS ist the long-term way to go, because every new Windows version is lesser compatible with the older stuff. Look at Steam. They sell 3rd-party stuff, that doesn't run on Windows 7 and they have a DRM client, that is dropping XP support in the foreseeable future (2014). The WINE approach is not that much different from DOSBox. Both implement compatibility APIs in software, that Games expect, and can be customized to accommodate their needs. If a game does not run, implement some quirks until it does. The compatibility of WINE with older software is actually higher than that of Windows 7 which needs a "XP mode" to accomplish that.

So why doesn't the GoG version have the Windows files as backup? Now we are stuck with the inferior DOS version even though patches exist.

Also my copy of SC2k never came with any DOS version.